


Reprise of the Past

by Nightfeathers



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alucard goes after after his friends, Apologies, Background is not canon compliant, Friendship, Love, Other, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfeathers/pseuds/Nightfeathers
Summary: Alucard gets a nudge in the right direction from some old journals kept by Mathias Cronqvist.
Relationships: Maybe Trevor/Sypha/Alucard depending on how you interpret but they are only shown as friends here, Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 8
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

Alucard sliced the fish he’d caught mechanically, following the way he’d been taught without putting any real thought into the action. When he realized he’d finished and the creature was ready to be cooked he was actually surprised, but put it in the pot and added the lid without slowing down. While it cooked he ought to be doing more, cleaning up or something, but the very idea was enough to make him fall into one of the chairs in the kitchen with a huff of exhaustion. 

“Why do I bother?” He looked over at the dolls on their shelf. The only people who had ever seemed to care about him, outside of his parents, might as well be ghosts themselves. It had only been a couple of months but it felt like a lifetime, especially now. 

“Because eating them raw wouldn’t be healthy.” His voice was higher pitched, an imitation of Sypha.

“But I’m half vampire. It’s not as if I’d catch anything from them,” He pointed out. 

There was so much more she would say. She’d talk to him about taking care of himself, as if he knew nothing about how human bodies worked. He’d remind her that he did, in fact, know a great deal about how to care for human bodies as well as half vampire ones. 

But having that conversation out loud felt exhausting too, so he remained silent and simply watched them both. Neither doll was capable of speech and he wondered not for the first time if he was going mad. 

“I have a very good reason to, now.” He smiled sardonically at them both. 

Days passed and the pain inside seemed never ending. 

“Is this why you hid for so long?” Alucard passed his hand over the walls of a hallway deep within the castle. The floor was starting to grow moldy from the river water soaked into the rugs. He’d stopped noticing the smell. The walk through the castle was a new habit. Going outside invited talk. This way the corpses would tell people to go away and he wouldn’t have to see them. 

Better to be alone than betrayed again. 

The sound of stone scraping against stone behind him made him stop and turn around. Nothing should have been moving in the castle. It was as dead as a large portion of the population of Wallachia. 

Alucard blinked. 

“Was that there a moment ago?” He took careful steps back the way he’d come and stopped at a door. In the stone on either side he could see the faint tracks of his nails as he’d dragged them along just a moment ago, but they didn’t go over the door. 

What really caught his eye was the Belmont crest carved deep into the wood of the door by an experienced hand. The carving itself was elegant, with scrollwork extending over the entire frame. Different types of wood had been inlaid into the heavy oak exterior to change the colors and shades. It was beautiful, and completely out of place in Dracula’s castle. 

“What on earth…” Alucard traced the crest slowly, nail retracted so he wouldn’t mar the surface even superficially.

The handle turned easily, but the door swung open to reveal a room covered in some places by dust inches thick. In the center where one would naturally walk the dust was thinner. A set of boot prints much too large to belong to anyone but Vlad himself cut a path through the dust to a desk in the middle of the room. Adrian felt a sudden surge of tears as he spotted them and slammed the door shut before falling back to lean against it while he panted heavily.

Within a few minutes he eased the door open again as if the ghost of his father might shout at him for intruding. No voices came, and Alucard stepped gingerly around the bootprints, leaving his own smaller steps as he followed them to the desk. 

The chair and most of the surface were free of dust. Atop it was a journal, one of a large set judging by the number stowed on bookshelves around the walls. A few had fallen to the floor. Alucard brushed a hand over the back of the chair and walked over to pick them up. One of them had fallen open and he couldn’t help noticing the beautiful calligraphic script of his father’s hand. 

The words, when they registered, nearly made him drop it. There is his father’s elegant script, written all in capital letters as if the writer was full of indignation, it said,  _ ‘SARA HIT ME IN THE HEAD WITH A FRYING PAN FULL OF GARLIC SOUP!’ _

Alucard burst out laughing. He had no idea who Sara was or why she’d hit anyone. However the image of some vaguely matronly peasant woman hitting his father with a full pan filled with a vegetables Vlad had hated was simply too much to resist. As he put it back on the shelf he noticed a few framed pictures that had been turned over on the shelf. 

The backs were covered in dust like the rest. When he lifted the first one he saw a beautiful woman with rich brown hair staring out at him with a smile on her lips. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see his father’s signature in one corner. There must have been women before his mother. In the centuries his father had lived it would be surprising if there weren’t. Still seeing one of them captured this way made his father seem more human, somehow, or more relatable anyway. 

Next was a man, which also wasn’t really surprising. This one was blond and strangely familiar though Alucard couldn’t place him right away. The final of the three was another blond, this time a woman. The paint was smudged in a few places, and it took him only a moment to realize they were bloodstains. Tears, judging by the shape, and they could only have fallen from his father.

Behind the portraits, which Alucard lay back down in their places so they wouldn’t be ruined by dust, the journals were numbered on the spine but otherwise had no titles. He picked up the first hesitantly, not certain if this would be too intrusive. Then again, Vlad was gone and thus unable to explain what they were about, so he took it and returned to the desk but he sat on the surface rather than in the chair. 

_ 21st March 1092 _

_ Today I met a most intriguing man who claims to be a hunter of monsters. He knew nothing of who I was and seemed unable to understand even after extensive explanation. I believed him doomed to ignoble death but even when faced with it at my hand, he continued to fight. I was intrigued enough to let him live, for the moment. He may prove amusing, given time. _

Alucard lifted an eyebrow. 

There followed a brief description of this apparently intriguing hunter including a name. Evidently his father had met Leon Belmont and that was the first interaction between their families but that wasn’t even the most interesting part. The description matched the portrait on the shelf rather well. 

Setting the book down carefully, Adrian returned to pick the painting up and bring it back to his seat. Then he continued reading.

Several encounters between the two were recorded in the journals. One comment made a few weeks later -that if Leon weren’t so loyal to his future wife, Mathias would have happily kept him- drew a curled lip and a slight gag from Adrian but it wasn’t enough to make him stop reading. The name change helped. 

Hours passed in this way with Alucard reading journal after journal. Mathias returned to challenge Leon multiple times, until eventually it became almost routine. Once or twice a week the vampire would port to the Belmont’s door and kidnap him back to Castlevania for a battle. After Leon lost he would be ported home again, every time with no more scratches on him than he’d earned in the fight. 

“Were you toying with him?” Alucard wondered as he slipped the next book from its place on the shelf. “I’m beginning to see why they hunt us. If someone kidnapped me twice a week, I’d declare war on them too. But why would you train him to do it? You were always so worried one of them would find us, but you gave them their start.” 

As much confused as fascinated, he began reading the next. 

_ 5th December 1092 _

_ Winter has taken a toll on Leon’s health. One of the fucking peasants gave him what I believe to be pneumonia. I’ve given him the appropriate treatment and will be monitoring to make certain he takes it. Given his exasperating refusal to cooperate, I cannot trust him to do so on his own.  _

“Now you’re saving the life of a Belmont?” Adrian shook his head. “Father what on earth were you doing. Of course he won’t cooperate. You’ve been tormenting him for ages. Why would you... “

At once, certain phrases and comments returned to him. The way Mathias spoke about him hadn’t been dismissive except in the beginning. In fact it had sounded almost proud, after a few weeks. And now here he was being protective, and evidently quite angry at whomever had given Leon Belmont this sickness. 

“Were you…” He picked the portrait up again and really looked at it. The expression on the face of the man being painted wasn’t just content. He seemed to be looking at the viewer with… love. Whatever kind it might be, there was undeniable affection in that gaze. 

For the painter, Alucard abruptly realized. 

Returning to the journal, he began reading with more fervent interest. How could this have turned into anything like what he saw in the portrait? And how did that become the hatred shared between the two families later? 

According to the journals Leon recovered from his illness and things seemed to go back to the way they were, at least on the surface. But the tone in Mathias’s descriptions had shifted, becoming more playful, almost as if he admired the man. 

_ 17th February 1093 _

_ While determining Belmont’s readiness for another battle, I became distracted. A young woman lost in the woods crossed my path. As I’d already fed for the evening I showed her home instead. Elisabetha proved more knowledgeable than expected which made the journey far too short. I believe I may call on her again at some later date, now that I’ve been invited. Her home isn’t far out of my way and her company was enjoyable.  _

Alucard looked up at the tops of the other portraits, though he didn’t rise to get them. One of those had to be this Elisabetha person, and he was certain she would prove to be the blond.

_ 3rd June 1093 _

_ Elisabetha said yes! I will be having a talk with her tomorrow. She deserves to know the truth. Assuming she doesn’t throw me out on my ear I hope to hold the wedding within the month. I see no reason to wait. I wonder if I should invite my hunter? I suppose it would be rude to have a fight in the middle of my wedding.  _

_ 4th June 1093 _

_ Upon being informed of my condition Elisabetha required proof. I believe I would be legally obligated to marry her in several countries if we were not already engaged. This bodes well for our future together, I think. She understands me in ways I didn’t believe possible and she didn’t seem frightened by my feeding. Wedding plans proceed without a hitch. I’ve decided to extend an invitation to my hunter and forbid him from attacking me during the wedding. _

_ 6th June _

_ Invitation was rejected. I must remember to examine Leon for illnesses that could cause an outburst of temper such as he displayed tonight.  _

Alucard had to pause there and stare at the words as if they might change. “You… invited Leon Belmont to your wedding? And you thought he might be ill when he refused?” He shook his head. “Father, what on earth were you thinking?”

_ 28th June 1093 _

_ With one exception the wedding came off perfectly yesterday. Elisabetha has never looked more beautiful than in her wedding gown. I admit I was in danger of staining my tunic when I first beheld her. The only hitch came when my hunter showed up. I thought he’d come for me after all. Apparently he is a friend of Elisa’s and he was uninformed as to who exactly she was marrying. The phrase ‘sarding asshole’ was thrown around too much for my liking. Luckily Elisa was out of earshot. His wife was maid of honor and attempted to kill me with glares through the ceremony. I’m not certain what Sara has against me but I’m sure she’ll inform me eventually. Could she be annoyed because I brought her home a few weeks ago? She was quite useful. Perhaps she was angry at the waste of soup. _

_ When I called him out for wearing a cross in a silly attempt to keep me at bay he claimed he wore it for religious reasons. I do not believe it but I allowed him to think I do in order to keep the peace.  _

_ Elisa was distressed by the outburst but recovered quickly. Our wedding night contained a kind of magic only she can weild. She sleeps beside me now, and I almost know what true contentment is.  _

The image formed from that phrase called to mind a memory for Alucard. When he’d shared a wagon with Sypha and Trevor he had never worried for his life. He’d slept in their presence, and awakened unmolested. Perhaps he knew something of what Mathias wrote of here after all. 

The surge of longing and despair that memory brought forth got him off the desk quickly. A dictionary provided him distraction while he looked up the antiquated word, and then laughed when he found the meaning. Perhaps Trevor came by his foul mouthed state honestly after all. 

As he returned to the desk and the journal he opened it up and noticed something else about the last entry. 

“Did you really not understand why she was angry at you?” Alucard looked at the walls as if they might have answers. “You kidnapped her husband on a regular basis and apparently tried to get him in bed. Which is something I could have lived without reading, though I suppose it’s beside the point. Why didn’t you just tell him you loved him and get it over with?” He rolled his eyes and returned to the journal. 

Everything changed after that. His father remained an emotional moron but somehow they managed to be friendly anyway. It even seemed as if Mathias was beginning to learn something from his mistakes. It made Alucard feel slightly less strange to know that his father had once been just as human as anyone else, even with the fangs. Fallible. Capable of stupidity on occasion as evidenced by his continued semi stalking of Leon Belmont and still not a word about his feelings for the man aside from some lusty comments that Alucard quickly skipped over.

The final journal on the shelf was not the last in the set. That one remained on the desk where Vlad had left it. Alucard was almost dreading reaching that one. One of these had to explain the hatred the Belmonts had for his father, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it had been now. 

_ 2nd October 1094 _

_ Elisabetha is gone. I would give everything to join her. _

It was the shortest entry to date. Alucard dropped the journal in shock. Entries until now had mentioned her illness, but Mathias had seemed dismissive. The certainty that she would recover was absolute even at the end. Alucard couldn’t help shedding tears for the woman his father had loved, and for Mathias too. No wonder he’d been so determined to keep Lisa and Adrian safe.

His hand shook as he reached for the journal. There had to be more, but as he flipped through he realized the pages were blank. Alucard returned it to the shelf and stared at the one lying on the desk. Unlike the rest it had no dust. Knowing how his father had reacted to his mother’s death, this one could not have gone well. In a way he didn’t need to read it to understand that but he had to know. 

Gingerly, Alucard finally sat in the chair and pulled the last journal closer. He opened it slowly, not sure now what to expect other than a disaster. The handwriting was less steady here, the words written in a hand that shook slightly. With rage, or pain, he wondered silently and decided it was probably both. Each would feed the other as they had more recently until they exploded upon the world. 

_ 11th November 1094 _

_ I’ve found the solution. I will not lose anyone else. Leon refuses to join me but it’s only because of her. If Sara were to become one of my subjects first he would have no choice. He can’t abandon her, even now. I can’t turn her myself. I can’t even be involved. If he finds out he’ll be furious but I have to save them. I don’t know who to trust with her life. I need someone powerful. I won’t give her the blood of some fledgling. She deserves better. My generals would all leap at the chance, but they would try to use her.  _

Alucard looked up from the journal with wide eyes. “Oh father. What were you thinking?”

_ 12th November _

_ The Stone. If she was turned using the Stone, she would gain more power than any other vampire could give. I cannot trust another vampire, but I know the stone works. She’ll be safe from death. Neither Leon nor Sara can ever know of the stone. They’ll both be safe with me forever once this is done. I’ve decided to enlist Bernhard in holding her. He’ll be easy to manipulate and his age will explain the power she inherits from the stone.  _

__ Alucard slid the chair back and laid the journal down. He didn’t have to read the rest, though he would eventually. Everything had gone wrong because his father couldn’t just tell them. If Mathias had spoken up to Leon in the beginning. told him how he felt, things might have gone differently. 

The parallel was impossible to miss. Alucard closed the journal and rested a hand on top of it. Though he was gone from this world it seemed Vlad still had a lesson or two to teach his son. 

On leaving the room, Adrian’s steps turned towards the main hall. Certain things would have to be seen to before he could do anything about what he’d just learned. The castle and the hold had to be secured enough to last until he could find Trevor and Sypha. Whether or not they would choose to return with him he couldn’t say but he had to give them that choice. More importantly he had to make sure they knew it was what he wanted. Much like his father he’d realized he never actually  _ asked _ them to stay and had in fact done his best to chase them away.


	2. Chapter 2

Crows called out from the trees high overhead, unseen and ignored. The creaking of the wagon and the clop clop of horses hooves as they pulled it over the muddy ruts of the road gave the only background noise to the couple riding within. Sypha stared down at the ruts beneath the horses’ hooves, but her thoughts had nothing to do with anything so innocent as horses. Trevor wanted to say something, to restore the easy optimism that normally filled her, but there was nothing to say. 

The cabin had destroyed any sense of hope either one of them had. For Trevor it was just a return to the way things had been since he was thirteen. The dream was ending, nothing more. Having touched a little piece of paradise for a few weeks might have made the fall back to earth a bit more painful but it wasn’t unexpected. In fact he was surprised it had taken this long for everything to go back to hell. 

But for Sypha, he knew the impact was potentially devastating. Even when they’d fought Dracula the lines were clear. Dracula was Evil. He and Sypha and Alucard were Good. Good killed Evil, and the rest of humanity got to keep on being basically Good, because if they weren’t then what was the fucking point? 

Only now Sypha had gotten to see firsthand that the lines were not nearly that clear. Trevor saw it as a child and he could still remember the horror, the anger, and behind it all the disappointment that  _ this  _ was what his family had fought and died to protect for so long. He could see it in her expression even from this angle, but that didn’t make it any easier to figure out how to address it. 

“So where do we go now?” He asked, giving her a nudge to make sure she broke out of whatever headspace she was in. 

“I don’t know.” Sypha answered without looking up. “Does it matter?”

“Depends. Do you want to sleep under a tree?” Trevor asked.

“What?”

“Well we could. That would be somewhere to go. Looking for trees.” He explained. “Or we could move on to the next town. You remember they had that werewolf problem crop up? We could give them a hand.”

“More Judges?” Sypha sighed and leaned into him. 

“Well they’re not all… I mean yes most people are shit. But not all of them.” Trevor fumbled for an answer. “We help the ones that aren’t.”

“Not today.”

“... No… not today.” Trevor looked over his shoulder back towards the town. 

They rode on in silence after that, Trevor having exhausted his ideas on how to cheer her up. Since they hadn’t decided on a destination he just began choosing whatever road was the straightest. It would get them further from that damned town and right now that was all either of them wanted. 

Two days later they were back on the road when they saw a horse trotting towards them with a familiar rider on board. Adrian’s hair gave him away before anything else, visible at a distance like a blond flag waving behind his head. The fact that he was riding a demon horse was actually the second thing Trevor and Sypha noticed. 

The wagon stopped, and Adrian dismounted once he’d gotten close enough. The horse pawed the earth, and for several moments the trio stared at one another in silence. 

“What are you doing here?” Trevor broke it with the obvious question. “I thought you were supposed to be guarding the castle and hold.”

“I secured them.” Alucard answered. “For a while. I have to get back but not right away. I’ve got spells on the doors and creatures guarding it. Turns out a lot of the inhabitants were in hiding. Frightened of all of us I think.”

“Do you need our help?” Sypha asked, climbing down from the wagon. “Is that why you found us?”

“No.” Alucard answered and shook his head. “I mean… sort of.”

“You sort of need our help?” Trevor snapped. 

“I don’t know where to begin.” Alucard tried to explain. “It’s… it’s complicated. I was exploring the castle and I found these journals that my father kept and I realized I have a great many things that I never said to either of you.”

“Came all this way to taunt me with my dead family members some more?” Trevor snorted. “Or just to tell me to go fuck myself again?”

“What?” Alucard looked surprised just as Sypha elbowed him. 

“What? He spent half the trip making Belmonts the butt of his jokes!” Trevor looked at Sypha and pointed at Alucard. “You didn’t hear me fucking making fun of his mother and teasing him about murdering his own father did you?! ‘Cause I’m not a fucking bastard!” He turned his attention to Alucard. “We get it, alright? You hate Belmonts.”

“No that isn’t… Did I really say that so many times?” Alucard asked, horrified more by his own behaviour than Belmont’s response.

“Every chance you got.” Trevor confirmed with a glower. “So why don’t you fuck off back to your castle? I’m not really in the mood to trade insults again.”

The realization that he’d been treating Trevor just as badly as Mathias had treated Leon struck Alucard then. He touched his chest, at first in panic and then suddenly burst out laughing. Trevor looked ready to bite his head off for that so he waved a hand. 

“I’m sorry.” Alucard interrupted him before he could speak and took a few steps towards them.

“What?” The question came from both humans at once. 

“I’m sorry.” Alucard repeated. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’re right. If you’d been making jokes about my family… We never would have stopped it.”

“Did something happen?” Sypha posed the question while Trevor was searching for an appropriate response. “You seem different.”

“Something… yes.” Adrian nodded and took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you about it later. First I just… I want you both to know. I need to tell you.”

“Tell us what?” Sypha took a step closer and put a hand on Alucard’s arm. 

“That I…” Alucard’s voice felt stuck in his throat. “You and Belmont… Trevor… When we were traveling together we shared the wagon. I could  _ sleep  _ with the two of you there. When we fought no matter what was going on I knew you were there. That you both were there for me. That I could…  _ trust _ you.”

“Of course you can.” Sypha looked at Trevor but the man was apparently rendered speechless. 

“But I didn’t realize what that meant!” Adrian insisted. “It’s… the two of you are important. To me. I should have said it. I should have asked you to stay. I wanted you to stay but… the prophecy and all… I didn’t think you could.”

That loosened Trevor’s tongue. “What, the killing Dracula prophecy? What does that have to do with anything?”

Sypha blushed.

“You don’t know?” Alucard looked at her and back to Trevor. “Of course you... “ He swallowed the comment, reminding himself why he’d come here in the first place. “The second half of the prophecy. The scholar and the hunter… wed.”

Trevor’s eyes widened to saucers. “What?”

“Did you think I wasn’t interested?” Alucard lifted an eyebrow. “The rest of the prophecy was true. I assumed the latter half would be as well. I… I didn’t want to get in the way of that. I didn’t want you to miss your destinies because of me.”

“That’s why you didn’t ask us to stay?” Sypha took Trevor’s hand. 

“Yes.” Alucard swallowed. “And… I trusted you both with my life, but trusting you with more… I couldn’t. Not then.”

“What happened?” Trevor asked. Dealing with what that prophecy meant for himself and Sypha was going to be a whole new round of freaking out that he preferred to put off as long as possible. 

“I had some visitors, not long ago. I thought I could trust them. Discovered I was wrong.” Alucard’s gaze dropped to the ground and off to the side as if the sparse grass had become fascinating. “They…”

They hurt you?” Sypha asked. Alucard nodded. “Did you kick them out?”

“I had to… I didn’t want to. I thought they would stay for a while. That I might even…” His hands trembled. “They were going to... “

Sypha hugged him at once. “You don’t have to say.”

“I didn’t want anyone coming around again.” Alucard explained. “They’re… on spikes. Both of them. By the door. I thought it worked to keep people away from my father. More effective than signs.”

“Well… it did.” Trevor agreed and refrained from mentioning the one obvious exception. “Is that why you came here? To warn us about your new lawn decorations?”

Sypha rejoined him just to elbow him again. 

“No.” Alucard had stopped shaking but he wasn’t feeling well at all. “I was wandering my castle, trying to forget… them, and I stumbled across a room I’ve never seen before. It had the Belmont crest on it. I think it used to be one of the guest bedrooms but half the room was destroyed. What remained were some journals of my father, detailing his first encounter with Leon Belmont. As I was reading them I realized… If he’d told the people he loved that he loved them in the beginning, none of this would have happened. He was hiding his own feelings, and being incredibly stupid about theirs. Instead of ending up with them and happy he turned into a monster, just like with my mother’s death. 

I don’t want to end up making the same mistakes and one day find myself rattling around in the castle completely alone in all the world. I don’t… want to hear the two of you died one day without me ever telling you how I feel. I care about you.” He looked at them each in turn as he spoke. “Both of you. However you can return it I’ll accept. I just had to tell you. I don’t want you to stay away. I don’t want to lose you.”

Sypha had tears in her eyes by the time he finished. She hugged him again and this time pulled Trevor along with her. Alucard embraced them both. Trevor was last to join in but once he had he held nothing back. 


End file.
